Remote Learning – Zoom sessions
Next week, if your child is learning from home, they will be invited to a Zoom session along with some of their friends from Nursery. Your child does not have to join in with these Zooms, they are optional. Unfortunately, the timings cannot be changed as most staff are teaching in school.
The Zooms will replicate the Key Worker sessions that your child is part of at Nursery. Sometimes, your child will need something to help them to join in with the session. Watch out for a website post each Friday – this will tell you what you will need to have ready. Don’t worry, hopefully it’ll be something you already have and quick to find!
Our first Zoom will be a dough disco session. Your child will need a small piece of dough, about as big as a ping pong ball.
Look out for an email on Friday 15th January, this will contain the invite to your child’s Zoom session. This invite will be the SAME each week, so make sure you save/mark the email as important as you will need it every week. If your child is learning from home and you don’t have an email by the end of the day, please send us an email. (scholesf1@spherefederation.org)
An adult will need to be present during these Zooms to ensure that your child can join in.
We are really looking forward to seeing you all next week at our very own dough disco.
Remote learning 18.01 – Winter
In Nursery, when we get some wintry weather, we often quickly adapt our daily plans to learn about ice and snow and to read winter themed stories. Obviously, planning for remote learning makes this a bit trickier, so we’ve planned these activities based upon the forecast of some more cold weather heading in our direction! If this doesn’t happen, please pick and choose the activities that you can do, and save some of the others for the next cold day!
Reading
There are lots of great stories that take place in a snowy setting. You might have ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’ at home or a favourite story that involves penguins or polar bears. Here’s a story for you to watch called ‘The Snowy Day’.
- How do you feel like when you open the curtains, look out of the window and see snow?
- Can you remember the sound that Peter’s feet made as he walked through the snow? We love listening to the ‘crunch’ of freshly fallen snow!
- What tracks did Peter find in the snow? Have you ever seen some tracks in the snow? What made the tracks?
- Peter put a snowball in his pocket. What happened? Where did the snowball go?
Phonics
In Nursery, we practise our listening skills when we’re singing and using instruments. We have to shake the instruments until we hear the music stop. Find something at home that you can use to make a noise – this could be an instrument, a pot with rice in or a wooden spoon and a pan! Shake or bang along to the music and remember to listen carefully for when to stop.
Mark-Making
- Draw a snowman. Think carefully about what shape you need to use for the body and head. How many eyes do you need to draw? What shape could you use for a carrot nose?
- Paint a winter picture. What colours would you use?
- Draw around your hands and carefully cut them out to make some paper gloves. Add patterns to decorate the gloves. Will they be spotty or stripy?
- Add a small amount of water to a baking tray (shallow) and put it out overnight when the weather forecast is cold. Hopefully, when you return to it in the morning, you will have a thin sheet of ice. Bring it inside and have a go at painting on it. What happens?
Mathematics
- You will need a large snowman outline (cut out white paper circles or draw one onto paper) and some buttons/pompoms/beads for buttons. Just like in our previous Gingerbread Man activity, put 1-6 buttons on the snowman and count how many buttons the snowman has. Encourage children to count carefully, pointing/touching each button as they say each number. Some children will work with numbers up to 3 confidently, others may be able to work with numbers to 5 or 10. Choose the number of buttons according to your child’s confidence levels.
- On a different day, instead of counting how many buttons are already on the snowman, ask children to select a given number of buttons from a pile. They may find this tricky and sometimes forget to stop! Keep the numbers small, below 3-4 to start with. (If your child can do this, increase the numbers up to 10.) Remind your child how many buttons they need to get and what number they are going to ‘stop’ at. Keep checking as they count – have they reached the ‘stop’ number yet?
- If your child is working confidently counting up to 6, introduce a dice. Roll the dice once each and add the corresponding number of buttons to your snowman. Which snowman has the fewest/most buttons?
Extension ideas
Some of our older children might enjoy playing the ‘Snowman Dice Game’ from Twinkl. The mark making skills required might be a too challenging for some children, but you could always draw the pieces onto paper and then collect each part as you roll the dice.
Creative
- Create a winter tree picture using some twigs that you collect from your garden or a walk. You will need some coloured paper, twigs, glue, cotton buds and white paint.
- Need some quiet time? Grab your favourite snack and a blanket and enjoy watching ‘The Snowman’ by Raymond Briggs.
- Are you wearing a woolly jumper to keep warm? Here’s Aunty Mable and Pippin in an old episode of ‘Come Outside’ telling us all about how they are made.
Understanding the World
- Talk to your child about the seasons. The BBC has a short video clip that you could watch to discuss things that you can see changing as the seasons change. Children might be able to spot some of the autumnal changes that we talked about in Nursery before Christmas.
- What season is it now? How do we know? What clothes do we wear in winter? How is this different to summer time? Listen to this song all about winter – Did you talk about some of the things in this video?
- On your next walk, have a look for some signs of winter. We’ve created a Winter Scavenger Hunt sheet for you to print or copy. Take it with you on your walk and tick off the items as you find them.
If your child comments on some of the changes that they see and you have time, please make a note of the words that they use and send us an email with their comments. (Please note it down word for word, just as they say it!)
- Investigate freezing and melting. Choose a selection of objects (that can go in water and be frozen!) and put them into some empty pots (yogurt pots, ice cube trays) with a small amount of water. Freeze them overnight (or longer) and remove once they’re frozen. Put the frozen items into a tray and allow your child to investigate. What does it feel like? What has happened to the water? Play with the ice and watch what happens to them over time. Talk about the changes that children can see happening. What’s happening to the ice? Discuss the basic process of melting and think about other things that might melt such as ice-creams on a sunny day.
Physical Development
Fiddly Fingers
Lots of us have memories of making paper snowflakes as a child and we thought that this would be a great activity to practise our ‘snipping’ skills. You will need some paper (cut it into a square shape) and a pair of children’s scissors. Loosely, follow these instructions on how to fold your paper – don’t worry too much about this part! In Nursery, we’re interested in learning how to fold and use scissors safely, rather than a perfect snowflake at the end of the process! Please ensure that your child is supervised when using their scissors. Show your child where to cut and let them enjoy snipping the paper. What does it look like when you open it out?
Movement
Join in with these Cosmic yoga sessions at home. There’s a shorter clip, Winter Wonderland, and a longer story called Joybob The Polar Bear.
Independence skills
At this point of the year in Nursery, we usually have a long line of children needing help to put their gloves on before we go outside! Over the next few weeks, encourage your child to put on their own gloves. Teach them to close their fingers at first to get their hand into the glove and then to open them slightly and wiggle each finger into place. Keep trying – it’s tricky!
Key Worker activity/videos
In our Key Worker session this week, we’re going to do our ‘Dough Disco’ song. Those of you that join our Zoom sessions will be able to have another go and practise each of the moves. You’ll need a small ball of playdough (or similar), just enough to fit in your child’s palm.
We also like to sing this song on cold, snowy days. It’s called ‘5 Little Snowmen’.
Friday Story Time
Are you sitting comfortably? Great, here’s Mrs Long with our story for this week. It’s called ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers.
Remote learning 11.01 – Zog and the Flying Doctors
This week, our learning is going to be themed around the popular children’s books ‘Zog’ and ‘Zog and the Flying Doctors’. We’re sure that lots of you will have enjoyed watching the new animation over the holidays.
If you are unfamiliar with the story, you can listen to it here and if you would like some quiet time, why not snuggle up on the sofa and enjoy watching it on BBC iPlayer.
Reading
- What was your favourite part of the story?
- Can you remember the characters that the Flying Doctors helped in the story?
- What do you think princesses should be like?
- If you’d like a challenge, try completing this quiz
Phonics
As part of our Phase One phonics learning, we practise making different noises with our own voices.
– Can you roar like a lion?
– If you don’t want to wake the sleeping King, what could you say? ( Shhhhh)
– What noise does Zog make when he lands? (Bang, crash, thump!)
– What noise do you think Princess Pearl says when she sees a silly, frilly dress? (Eugh!)
Can you think of any other sound effects that you could make from the story?
Mark-Making
Do you have some wrapping paper left over or some old wall paper? Turn it over and roll it out on the floor. Hold it down at the corners using some tins/books/tape. Can you draw a giant map for Zog to show him where to go? What will be on your map? You could draw some trees for a forest or a tall mountain. What about a castle or a river?
Remember, in Nursery, the process of mark making is the most important part. The end product may not ‘look’ exactly like you think it should, but the marks that your child has made will mean a lot to them. If you have time, try to draw a little bit with your child before leaving them to continue alone. As you draw, talk about your marks and what they show (keep them simple). It’s great if they can talk to you about what they are drawing as they make each mark.
- Here’s a Zog colouring sheet if you have a printer at home. We try to talk about choosing the correct colour for things at Nursery.
- You might also like to try and follow the lines very carefully with your pen to help Zog win a golden star .
Mathematics
Watch this song about 2d shapes and talk about the names of the basic 2D shapes (circle, square, triangle and rectangle). Then, look at these pictures of castles and see what shapes you can spot. How you know it’s a triangle? How many sides does that shape have? Can you see a shape with a curved side?
Pictures taken from Twinkl Google images.
Extension ideas
– Cut up a selection of different sized shapes and ask your child to create their own castle or maybe even a dragon picture. There are lots of ideas online. What shape would be good to use to make a doorway or window?
– Have a look on Google images at castles to see what other shapes you can spot.
Creative
- We love to create buildings using Duplo in Nursery. If you have Lego or Duplo at home, can you build a castle?
- Sir Gadabout has a shield and a sword in ‘Zog’. We know that some of you love to play ‘knights’ so maybe you’d like to have a go at making your own shields using any recycling items that you have such as cardboard delivery or cereal boxes etc.
- Role play being a doctor/nurse and help to make some of your toys better. Use your imaginations to think about what could be wrong; in the story, the mermaid has sunburn and the lion gets a sore throat. You could make a bandage (toilet roll) or use some old plasters that are hiding at the back of a cupboard somewhere.
- Before lunch, we often choose to listen to this song about a dragon on the doorstep.
Physical Development
Fiddly Fingers
Draw or print a dragon outline. Get some clothes pegs and show your child how to squeeze them to open them. Use the pegs to add spikes onto the dragon’s back (like in the dinosaur photo below). You could challenge them to add 2 blue spikes or 3 yellow ones.
Movement
Get moving and join in with this Happy Dragon dance!
Independence skills
In the story, the Lion has a sore throat and cold and needs to blow his nose a lot! Can you blow your own nose? Next time you need to blow your nose, get a tissue and look in the mirror. Hold the tissue to your nose, pinch your fingers gently around the tissue and blow. Remember to pinch and pull as you move the tissue away from your nose. Look in the mirror to check that your nose is clean and do it again if you need to. What’s the last thing that you need to do? Throw your tissue in the bin or flush it away and then wash your hands well.
Key Worker activities
Watch these videos (click on the two links below) and join in our Key Worker activity at home. Listen carefully to the clues and animal noises. Which animal is it?
If you enjoyed playing, have a go at the game at home. We’d love you to make up your own clue and send a video for us to guess which animal you have!
We often play games that help to develop our visual and memory skills. Look carefully at the animals and see if you can work out which is missing! You can easily play this game at home- just choose 5-6 items and find a tea towel or towel to hide them.
Friday Story Time
This week’s story time is a book called ‘Do not bring your dragon to the library’ and is read by Miss Whitaker. We hope you enjoy listening at home; click on the video link below.
‘Do Not Bring Your Dragon To The Library‘ written by Julie Grassman.
Have a great week of home learning. Please make sure you e-mail us each week to let us know how you all are and which activities you’ve enjoyed.
A message from Mrs Beesley and Mrs Long
Well done for making it through the first week of lockdown (again)! When we heard the news late on Monday evening, we quickly adapted our Nursery plans to include some learning activities that you could enjoy at home. We hope that you enjoyed listening to ‘The Gingerbread Man’ story and that you found some time to join in a few of the activities.
Here’s a short video message from Mrs Beesley and Mrs Long.
Our theme for next week is all about a little orange dragon… Can you guess which book we’re going to listen to? We’ll post all of the activities and videos for next week on Sunday. Please choose as many of the activities as you would like to do. We know that most families are trying to juggle both work and learning at home, often with two or more children in different year groups. This is very hard and it’s impossible to replicate ‘Nursery’ at home. Try to just have fun together when you can and remember that we learn through play in Nursery. We also try to follow children’s interests so if they’re interested in something else, don’t worry about adapting our activities to suit your child.
From next week, we will post all of our learning activities for the following week on Friday afternoon. Hopefully, this will give you a chance to read through them and gather any bits that you might need.
Please try to email us each week to let us know how you are. It doesn’t have to be a long email, just a quick hello and maybe 1 or 2 photos of what you’ve enjoyed. We’ll post some of these photos at the end of the week so that your child can enjoy seeing their friends learning at home too.
Scholesf1@spherefederation.org
If you have any feedback on things that you enjoyed or anything that you found difficult, please do let us know.
Have a good weekend at home and enjoy getting some fresh air on one of your favourite lockdown walks.
Remote Learning – The Gingerbread Man
Well, it’s not quite the welcome back that we had planned! We’ll provide you with more information regarding our remote learning activities this week, but here are some activities to get you started.
This week in Nursery, we were going to read a very popular and familiar tale, ‘The Gingerbread Man’.
If you have a copy at home, share it together or you could watch this online version.
Reading
As you read the story, see if your child can join in with the repeated phrases such as… “Stop! I want to eat you!” and “Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread man!”
Talk to your child about the story. What happened? What did the Gingerbread Man say? What happened at the end of the story?
Mark-making
We love drawing our own gingerbread people in Nursery. Draw, paint or print an outline and add in some details. Give your gingerbread person some eyes, a nose and a mouth. How many buttons will you draw? What shape are they?
Mathematics
There are some fun Gingerbread Man counting activities on this website. In Nursery, we don’t expect children to recognise digits at this point so you may need to help your child recognise the numbers as you play together. Count the buttons and remember to say the numbers slowly, touching each button as you count it.
You could continue to play this together using the gingerbread person that you drew. Find something to use for buttons (buttons, pompoms, sweets, coins…) and challenge each other to put on 1-5 buttons. We’d expect some children to be working with numbers up to 3,4 or 5, but some children may be able to count more confidently up to 10 with one to one correspondence.
Here are a few ways to extend the activity…
- Which Gingerbread Man has the most/fewest buttons? How do you know?
- How many buttons would s/he have if we added one more? Ate one?
- If you put 1, 2 or 3 buttons on the Gingerbread Man, can you tell how many there are without counting? Try it!
Creative
- If you have the ingredients, have a go at making your own gingerbread people. It’s always a great hit in Nursery. If you don’t have time this week, add the ingredients to your weekly shop and save it for a weekend treat together.
- Watch ‘Melody’ as she listens to some music that reminds her of the Gingerbread Man story. What did it make you think of?
- If you have playdough at home, have a go at making gingerbread people.
Phonics – Nursery rhymes
During group time this week, we were going to re-visit some of our favourite Nursery rhymes. Sing some together at home. There are lots to choose from here.
As you’re singing, try missing out a word from the end of a line. Can your child fill in the missing word? E.g. Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great….. ?
Please remember to let us know how you’re getting on throughout the week and send us a quick e-mail to scholesf1@spherefederation.org. We love to find out about your home learning – in whatever form it takes. Gingerbread Man related or something completely different!
School closure – including Nursery
Please see the whole school announcement regarding school’s closure today, including Nursery.
https://www.scholeselmet.leeds.sch.uk/find-out/news/#news0
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! We hope that you’ve had a happy and healthy break over the Christmas holidays.
Remember, we have a training day on Monday 04 January. We’re looking forward to welcoming you back to Nursery on Tuesday and can’t wait to hear all about the fun that you’ve had over the last two weeks. We’re also looking forward to meeting our new families on Friday, when our new children will join us for a settling in session.
This week, we will focus on settling children back into Nursery routines and we’ll be looking for any new interests that children have. Don’t forget to send us an email if your child has suddenly become engrossed in something new at home! We will add their new interests to up-date our ‘What makes us tick’ notice display in Nursery. We use these interests to inform our planning and learning activities in Nursery.
See you soon! Foundation One Team
Merry Christmas
What a fabulous, festive and fun filled week we’ve had! Children loved our Nursery Christmas party on Monday. We danced to Christmas songs in the school hall and played some traditional games including pass the parcel and ‘corners’. Afterwards, we enjoyed eating some party treats and then watched the animated version of ‘Stickman’. Lots of children remembered parts of the story from reading it in Nursery in our small world area.
On Wednesday, we watched a live pantomime and enjoyed some popcorn during the performance. The children were engrossed and soon began to join in… It’s behind you!
On Thursday, everyone had a traditional Christmas lunch together which included pulling crackers, telling jokes and wearing party hats! Afterwards, we visited the ‘Christmas lights’ in the school hall. You may have already seen the photographs on our Facebook page. We had another surprise when we got back into Nursery, Father Christmas had been! We watched a video of Santa playing in Nursery, he read us a story and left us a Nursery present. Thank you, Santa!
Finally, we’d like to say thankyou for our cards and gifts and for your lovely comments about our Nursery Christmas Sing-a-Long videos. We’re glad you enjoyed watching at home.
We’d like to wish you all a very merry Christmas (even if it might be a little different to usual) and a happy and healthy new year!
We wish you a Merry Christmas…
We couldn’t let COVID-19 ruin all of our Christmas fun; we’ve tried to ensure that children have taken part in as many of our usual Nursery Christmas activities as possible. The main difference, sadly, is that you haven’t been able to join us for them. Instead, we’ve put together a few short video clips to ensure that you don’t miss out on some essential Early Years Christmas singing! We hope that you enjoy singing along at home and would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy (and hopefully a more ‘normal’) New Year.
We’ll look forward to seeing you on Tuesday 05 January. Remember, we have a Training Day on Monday 04 January.
Christmas Sing-a-Long
Festive fun!
We’ve had a fun and festive week in Nursery. Children have been busily making cards and decorations – look out for these coming home in the final week. (The contents of the bags have been quarantined and haven’t been touched for 72+ hours, but as always, please follow good hand hygiene procedures.)
Here are a few of the activities that we have enjoyed this week.
- Making and decorating salt dough decorations and Christmas cards.
- Counting out the correct number of presents using the Interactive Whiteboard.
- Working with friends to decorate the trees outside.
- Making Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in the playdough area and learning to use a rolling pin to roll the dough out flat. In our Dough Disco activities, we’re also learning how to roll a ball using the palms of our hands.
- Writing toy lists and letters for Father Christmas.
- Playing outside and sheltering from the rain in our den.
Look out for our final post of this year on Monday…we’re sure it’s one that you’ll love!
Reminders
- Remember it’s our Christmas party on Monday 14 December. Please see the previous post for more information regarding clothing, times and £1 donation.
- Water bottles – please make sure these are NAMED and that your child has a water bottle every day, even if they only attend for an afternoon session.